Stimulus
Text extract (adapted): "In 2015 more than a million people, many fleeing the war in Syria, reached the European Union in a single year. Some leaders welcomed them; Germany's chancellor declared 'we can manage this'. Others declared a security emergency, built fences and framed arrivals as a threat to public order, jobs and national culture. In 2021 the government of Belarus deliberately funnelled migrants to the Polish border to pressure the EU, showing how movement of people can be used as a weapon. Scholars note that calling migration a 'security threat' is itself a political choice: it can justify walls and emergency powers, or it can be reframed as a humanitarian and economic challenge to be managed."
(d) Evaluate the extent to which treating migration as a security threat is justified.
Essay preview
Treating migration as a security threat is justified only to a limited extent. It can be justified when migration is deliberately instrumentalised by states, linked to trafficking networks, or arrives so suddenly that governments face an immediate breakdown in border management and public order. However, when ordinary